Psychopath Free: Recovering from Emotionally Abusive Relationships With Narcissists, Sociopaths, and Other Toxic People

by Jackson MacKenzie

You are punished through silence and criticism. You are called crazy and hypersensitive. And eventually, you are abandoned. Throughout all of this, you continue your desperate attempts to save the relationship. You find yourself crying, pleading, and denying reality. This person has become your entire life. You have no one to reach out to for help, because they all believe your relationship to be perfect.

With time, you’ll come to see that the frantic, broken, anxious, unhinged version of you was nothing to be ashamed of. You were simply a kindhearted person reacting to a very unkind situation. Those outbursts and behaviors were the result of your most admirable qualities being exploited and eroded. It took me quite some time to come to this conclusion, but when I look back on my old mess of a self, I actually feel a strange sort of admiration for that person. He was doing everything he could with an impossible situation, and I will always respect him for that.

The difference lies in how you act upon those insecurities. Psychopaths see them as a way to manipulate and control. Empathetic people, on the other hand, seek to cure insecurities with love and compassion.

I understand that it is better to be single than in a toxic relationship.

If someone’s opinion of you goes from sky-high to rock bottom, this isn’t normal.

No matter what they might promise, those with Cluster B disorders cannot and will not change for you.